Built an empire on its Master Kong instant noodles but now it's also No. 1 in China in ready-to-drink tea and bottled water. Joins the Fab 50 for the third year in a row and sports an impressive 136% annual growth in operating income over the last five years. Taiwan's Wei family started the company in 1991 in Tianjin. Chairman and Chief Executive Wei Ing-Chou and his three brothers own a third of the shares; their $4.5 billion fortune is Taiwan's fifth-biggest. Main threat comes from rivals such as Coca-Cola.

All figures are in U.S. dollars. Market value as of Sept. 1.1 - Annualized2 - Annualized; projected over next three to five years.3 - Combined market value for Rio Tinto Ltd. and Rio Tinto Plc. (a dual-listed company with headquarters in Australia and the U.K.)
NA - Not availableSources: Interactive Data, LionShares, Thomson IBES and Worldscope via FactSet Research Systems; Bloomberg.Photo: Imaginechina